8 O'Clock Buzz

With a merger of staff and resources a year ago from Community GroundWorks and the Center for Resilient Cities, Rooted works on collaborations rooted in food, land and learning. Director of the Badger Rock Neighborhood Community Center — just one of the Rooted programs — Hedi Rudd talks about the many activities of this group, from managing Madison community gardens to youth activities on growing and cooking locally grown food to a sprout business and more.

Today on the Tuesday 8:00 Buzz with Dr. Damita Brown (in exile)…

“Perhaps You’re the Second One” – Bringing out Black Women Filmmakers

In the first half, Filmmaker Yvonne Welbon joins us on the line from Chicago to talk about her non-profit and documentary called Sisters in Cinema, examining African American women film directors and the barriers they face breaking through, her works, and upcoming trans-media project, Sisters in the Life.

“What are they really mad at?” – Find a black Person to blame about it

In the second half, Community Power Building Director Mahnker Dahnweih from Freedom, Inc joins us to talk about the state of the world, the evolving racial saga in Sun Prairie, and what Freedom, Inc is looking forward to doing!

More about Freedom, Inc and Mahnker’s work: https://freedom-inc.org/

Listen in Madison at 89.9FM or online anywhere at wortfm.org.  Support your community radio with a pledge online at wortfm.org!

According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre, 18 million people worldwide left their homes due to weather-related disasters.  That’s almost twice as many people as those who were displaced by war or conflict.  With atmospheric greenhouse gasses hitting historic highs in January, 2021, climate change models predict more frequent, intense and prolonged storms, floods and droughts in the years to come.  That, in turn, will likely drive more and more people from their homes, with some predictions hitting 100-200 million people displaced by 2050.  The Trump Administration generally buried its head in the sand when it came to climate change, but there are signs the Biden Administration is paying attention.  Whether or not U.S. policy changes is enough to help climate migrants, however, remains to be seen.  Kayly Ober is a senior advocate and program manager of the climate displacement program at Refugees International.

Climate Map by KVDP, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

 

 

Science, technology, engineering and math fields, collectively known as STEM fields in education jargon, are commonly thought to be the hottest paths to economic well being.  The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that these fields will grow faster than any other sector in the years to come.  But, some of the fastest growing segments of the U.S. population — non-White racial minorities — typically participate in these fields at rates lower than their percentage in the general population.  This could have the effect of widening already troubling income disparities along racial lines.  To combat this, many educators have tried to redesign science education to appeal more to students from a minority background.  Such attempts, however, may reveal more about educators’ assumptions and innate prejudices than they do about how different racial and economic groups learn.  Katie Kirchglaser is an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin School of Curriculum and Instruction.

Photo of science students by Argonne National Laboratory, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

On Saturday, February 13, the U.S. Senate, by a 57-43 vote, found former President Trump guilty of charges of “willfully inciting violence against the Government of the United States.”  The margin, however,  fell ten short of the 67 votes needed under Article II, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution to convict under impeachment proceedings.  Senate Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell voted to acquit, but then castigated the former President in a floor speech, a maneuver Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi blasted as “disingenuous.”  Trump now becomes the first U.S. President to be impeached — and acquitted — twice.  Joining us once more to make sense of all this and to put it all in historical perspective is University of Wisconsin – Madison Political Scientist Eleanor Neff Powell.

Photo of U.S. Capitol insurrection by Tyler Merbler, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

 

Many of us know Cat Capellaro as V05 disco diva, half of Mick Jagger in Loving Cup, playwright, and Arts and Culture editor at Isthmus… Today she comes to us as a reporter for The Wisconsin Examiner to tell us, as she wrote in an article published on Tuesday… “What you need to know about the candidates in the 7-way school superintendent primary.”

(Photo by Phil Roeder on CC BY 2.0)

Still open after 19 years, over one-hundred human rights groups have sent a letter to President Biden to close the Guantanamo Bay detention center. Today housing only 40 detainees, many of whom have never been charged and some of whom have been cleared for release since before the election of Donald Trump, this detention center with limited scrutiny, indefinite detention, and historic torture is the most expensive prison in U. S. control — costing $540 million per year. Aliya Hussain, Advocacy Program Manager of the Center for Constitutional Rights, describes the issues.

Last May, then-President Trump signed an executive order for government regulating agencies to streamline permitting of industrial-scale commercial aquaculture facilities by March 2021, against the concerns of environmentalists. Hallie Templeton, Deputy Legal Director of Friends of the Earth, talks about some of the issues of these factory fish farms, and the current status of Trump’s executive order under President Biden.

Already this year, there have been 165 bills introduced in state legislatures throughout the U.S. placing limits on voting rights. Hannah Klain, Equal Justice Rights Fellow at the Brennan Center for Justice, talks about some of the provisions of two Congressional bills aimed to strengthen voting rights, the “John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act” and HR1, the “For the People Act“.

Today on the Tuesday 8:00 Buzz with Dr. Damita Brown (in exile)…

Coco Das from Refuse Fascism joins to talk about the election, impeachment, the attempted insurrection at the Capitol, and what we can do to fight fascism in America.

More information on Refuse Fascism: https://refusefascism.org/ and https://linktr.ee/refusefascism

Follow Coco Das on Twitter: https://twitter.com/coco_das

Rev. Simoné Walls and Min. Alexis Tardy from Call and Response  join to talk about the death of Dr. Susan Moore, Christian activism in the Black church, being anti-racist, and what can be done about the disproportionate impact that COVID-19 is having on the Black community.

More information on Call x Response: https://www.facebook.com/CallxResponse/

Listen in Madison at 89.9FM or online anywhere at wortfm.org.  Support your community radio with a pledge online at wortfm.org!